To say the re-launch of Zune Music and Video as Xbox Music and Video has been smooth for some consumers would certainly raise some eyebrows around Windows Phone Central. Since day one we have had numerous complaints over incompatibles and items that need re-purchasing.

One area for which we can verify ourselves as a problem is that of Xbox Video, where as far as we can tell, it is not possible to transfer your purchases to your shiny new Windows Phone 8 device. We spent a good hour or two yesterday fidgeting around with various setups and failed on each one. We’re sure many, many other people have and will do the same—after all, according to Microsoft it’s “three screens and a cloud”, right?

Microsoft has now flat out stated that rented or purchased video content via Xbox Video is just not supported in Windows Phone 8. The info is published on their Windows Phone 8 knowledge base and just confirms what many of us have been trying for weeks now:

“Windows Phone 8 does not currently support playback of rented or purchased content from the Xbox Video Store. If you'd like to see this feature added, you can go to the Windows Phone Feature Suggestions website and make requests for future releases.”

So though we purchased Drive (2011) from Zune Video and just the other day Warrior (2011) via Xbox Video, as of now there is zero chance that those videos will play on our Nokia Lumia 920 or HTC 8X—it’s just not possible. That's right, even your older Zune Videos that you purchased are useless on Windows Phone 8. (We could even point out how Zune Videos can't be re-downloaded to Windows 8 devices via Xbox Video. You need to use Zune Desktop, which is fine except when you have the Surface RT and you can't. But that's just adding salt to the wound, no?)

This despite the fact that when you purchase those items, you are explicitly told you now own a license to play them on your Windows Phone. Technically we guess that’s true if you have an older phone but not their new mobile OS, Windows Phone 8.

Normally we try to be more forgiving of Microsoft, acknowledging how “these things take time” and Windows Phone is a work in progress. But we have our limits too and we find this glaring hole in the Xbox Video service to be unacceptable, especially if you’re upgrading.

Microsoft, we don’t say this often around here but do something about this and do something fast (including refunds for purchase content). This is embarrassing.

Like in the Zune software you need to specify where your local music files are located. This is done in file explorer - navigate to library -> music
Admin the "general music" folder and Add the folder(s) where your music is located as you would in the Zune software and they will appear in your xbox music app.

Out of curiosity, where DO you buy your videos? Ironically, it would seem iTunes is the best option since although they come in .m4v format, many players will play them (and for those that don't, one can easily convert them into .mp4 or whatever).
I ask because I've only recently started to buy videos and Amazon's DRMed-to-hell approach didn't look good and XBOX seemed odd since I don't use their points system. Google Play doesn't seem to let you download (maybe I'm wrong...I just couldn't find it), nor could I buy (as opposed to rent) a lot of their content. That brought me to the last place I would have thought I'd end up...iTunes=/

Geez...this sort of thing is not just embarrassing, it's absolutely ridiculous. One of the main selling points of the new ecosystem was the whole three screens idea now we are seeing that it is falling short.

You are aware that you can get a Season Pass for TV shows on Xbox Video though, right? Sure, you may not watch a movie, but watching a 22 minute TV show on the train to work is not exactly niche these days...

My wife and I purchased season 4 of Breaking Bad to watch when we were staying with her parents over Christmas last year. We would watch a few episodes each night before we went to bed, reclining on the bed, with my Dell Venue Pro propped up on a pillow.
This is a very important feature that I expect in a mobile phone in 2012.

What about the 30 minute tv show I want to watch on my lunchbreak?
What about the 2 hour movie I want to watch on on a plane or train that doesn't have an entertainment system?
What about this thanksgiving, staying in relatives' guest bedroom with no TV?

the sad thing is, that windows 8 offers a lot of nice looking apps, but no matter which app you use, everywhere you have the feeling that they cut down the functionality. no matter if it is xbox music which is a joke compared to zune or he mail app which is an extremely stripped down version of windows live mail.it simply can't be that this is the new approach of Microsoft developing a new operating system.yes it looks Venice and it's fast, and it's very good to use, but reducing the functionality of apps like they did make windows 8 an epic fail! I use it on my notebook and I like the concept a lot, but if keep the apps this way, I'm going to downgrade to win7 again, because feature wise this will be a upgrade!!

This IS embarrassing. Just like the Music App native to Windows RT is embarrassing, appalling, abysmal... easily the worst Microsoft product I have ever used. Easily... and I'm a rare Microsoft fanboy over here lol
I'm not one for this, but I truly hope some heads roll for the horrible music app. Usually the thing that gets Microsoft's attention the most (besides shareholders) is bad public image. I hope ... truly HOPE Gizmodo slams Microsoft in a future article on their horrible music app. Because at its current stage, it has more bugs than I can count on two hands.

That's precisely my experience with it. I end up filling up multiple feedback notes each time I try to use it. Absolutely terrible. If Microsoft can't get their own developers to create a decent experience on WinRT, what chance to third parties have??

Ditto. So sad, especially considering they don't actually have to go back to the drawing board to get inspiration into what makes an awesome music app. They just need to look at Zune. I really really wish that MS hadn't shutdown Pioneer and let J Allard leave. They brought a sense of style and polish to MS that they sorely needed.

Now this stupid Xbox video issue and the abysmal state of syncing to wp8. Seriously MS, it's one thing to not be keeping pace with the competition in new features, but it's a whole other ball game of stupid when you start regressing.

I'm quite disgusted by all this really. Just unbelievable. And I hate all the apologists making excuse for this, and suggesting alternatives. Thank you for the alternatives but how hard is it to understand that you shouldn't be having to compromise on features you've already had when moving to the 'updated' version of stuff.

Stuff that. Every newspaper and tech blog IN THE WORLD, slamming this app. Glaring bugs out the wazoo, and what's with the Skype metro app crashing all the time? I have an Intel i5, with 8gb gaming RAM. This should not be happening...

False. Head to forums and there are plenty of people complaining about it. And once again, you *miss the point*. If Microsoft is advertising Xbox Video as being "3 screens" and tell you can now watch it on your phone but you cannot, that is not truth in advertising...

Link bait? You have got to be kidding me. The whole media experience on Windows Phone 8--either music or video--is a little bit of a nightmare right now. It's a step back from the WP7-Zune experience, not progress. That's important for people to know.

@heelo Read more closely. It was only *today* that Microsoft has officially given a response to this issue. Up until now, we've been holding back on this until they said something.

This just adds to a lot of other misgivings from. Microsoft recently: no wp8 upgrade for my beautiful Stormtrooper, half-finished wp8 and no exclusive software for wp8... Won't deter me and I might not even use it... BUT IT PISSES ME OFF BIGTIME!

The lead image says everything about what happens when you purcahse a video from Microsoft--you can play it on your Xbox 360, PC and Phone. That has always been the case, even on Windows Phone 7. In fact, the instructions for syncing to the phone are for a WP7/Zune setup.

correct it should be identical as WP7 (samsung focus for me) however WP8 can not play the videos. Either through the terrible new sync client (zune client is dead to WP8) or through drag and drop. The problem is soley from the DRM as non DRM video plays just fine.

Didnt I see a Microsoft youtube video with someone from the SmartGlass team showing how you can buy a movie on your Xbox and use the app to watch it on his Surface and then his phone? Would that still work or is that a no go too?

Word. The only time I buy a movie if its a special movie ( a matter of taste, I guess) that really should be owned in its physical form. Otherwise, I rely on those services you named (Zune/Xbox Video included for rental purposes)

Level up and lose functionality? WTH? Not that I'd watch a movie on my phone it would be nice to have. Xbox music torks me off. I love the jumplists where you tap the letter and it pulls up the alphabet to jump to that letter of artist or song. On my Surface I have to search for it or endlessly scroll. Unless someone here has a better option for me.

Exactly! I hate that there isn't better filtering capability. For people with large music libraries, looking for music is a real pain in the a$$. Also, getting to the play controls flat out sucks. The music app is a step back in my opinion.

I already noted that in my original post. I want to tap, tap, scroll the songs for that letter and choose it. I don't want to swipe, type letters, tap on song and then play. Way too many steps compare to WP.

XBOX Music and XBOX Video are so bad... it's a shame... Before killing Zune, they should have make they could match of beat it feature... it's broken, it's a failure... The media experience that was a joy between Zune and WP7 is now very bad. I experience the exact same thing, bought a movie on my Surface and can't get it to work on my phone. And synching is not even close to what Zune was able to do. Wireless sync, gone. Playlist list creation and management, gone. Importing only necessary song to your mobile device, gone. Keeping my music on my network disk, gone. Bad bad bad bad media experience. They are pushing so mush their cloud feature that they forget 99.99% of people have a local digital version of our music. if people wonder why @stevei got fired, I would start by this mess. I can work with my Surface and my Windows Phone, but playing is limited by that stupid excuse of a replacement to Zune they called XBOX music/video.

This lack of consistent follow-through on the end-user experience is exactly why he's gone. His team didn't invent it, so it got scrapped when he took over. He ostrosized and alienated everyone that wouldn't play by his rules. Plain and simple, based on all the evidence I ever saw.

While I don't care so much about the video aspect the music app is pretty horrific. I synced info to my files on windows 8 over the weekend then used the WP App to sync my phone and all the information is gone leaving me grey squares where the cover/artist info should be. DOH!!!

Why wouldn't Microsoft just update the appearance of Zune Desktop and rebrand it as Xbox Music, retaining all of the fuctionality and allowing the DRM access to port from your old 7.x phone to a 8.x device? Right now my solution with the Lumia 920 is to play music off the cloud with my Xbox Music Pass. The constant issues with content not being authorized to play on my device was weighing on me. If I want an album, I'll download it directly to my device. As inconvenient as this may be, it is the only rational option outside of pirating music again. Honestly, that would have been easier to do at this point and I wouldn't have had to spend $10 a month on the pass. I was looking forward to going legit, Microsoft. If your business model is going to be that you have to re-purchase content between the Xbox, PC and Windows Phone the price should be lowered. I would pay $2 a movie to watch them on my phone - meaning that I only own a license and a quick call home to MS's servers to say my license is current is all that is needed to resume play. Sure, download the file for local and unbuffered play but make it check for a license weekly. If I wanted Phone, Xbox and PC I would pay $10. That seems fair to me.

Bait and switch, im sure a lot of people's first thought would be "who the hell watches a movie on a phone anyway??"

not the point, the point is MS said that all platforms would be united and it is not. I dont care to watch movies on my phone, but if MS says it should work, then it should. The fact that it does not, will create dis-trust towards microsoft who is already behind in the market.

Plus it's just not movies but TV shows too as Xbox Video has season passes for TV. Not everyone watches a movie on their phone, fair enough but TV shows while waiting for the subway is far from unheard of.

Fortunately (???), neither Xbox Music nor Video are available in my country, so this doesn't affect me at all, but I'm pretty disappointed in Microsoft for letting this happen. Windows Phone platform is still struggling to gain market share, and this is nothing but driving nails in a coffin. :/ I really hope MS will fix this asap! :)

Yeah fix this fast as well as the music. And for what its worth... My purchased movie via Xbox is not scene on my windows 8 PC either. That may be a whole nother issue... But expectations after seeing all the "8" hub-bub made me feel like everything played nice together. Or shall I call it dumbglass?

I. FREAKING. HATE the new Xbox Music experience, and Xbox Videos -- while great on Xbox and Windows 8 -- is absolutely maddening to use for Windows Phone. It's nuts. It's straight up insane. Bonzai. No longer in possession of one's faculties. Three fries short of a happy meal. WACKO!

I literally spent 5 hours yesterday going through my Zune music collection redownloading half of my Zune Pass songs just so they'd even show up and work in Xbox Music. Then... ahem. THEN! I had to cleanup the freaking mess it made with my "Xbox Cloud" syncing (I ended up shutting the whole thing off), and fixing half my playlists. And don't get me started on the mother f-ing Live Playlists that I had in Zune that are now static ones in Xbox. GAH! I am beyond annoyed by it!

And it wouldn't be so bad if I could just adequately use classic Zune as my exclusive experience. No, now I've got to jump through hoops to get my damn music synced to the phone. Enter--- WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER! Yes, that's right, folks, I had to resort to classic WMP just to get my music and playlists synced properly.

This is why people end up hating Microsoft. The products are GREAT... unless you're migrating from a previous Microsoft experience. Then you're screwed. You're better off converting FROM some non-Microsoft solution, because there's usually import tools for that!

OK, so I'm usually a Microsoft apologist, but they really screwed the pooch on this one. AND WHERE'S MY XBOX VIDEO PASS OPTION?!?!?!

I feel you. After syncing 15GB of music to my Zune music to my phone to find out I couldn't play it, I decided it wasn't worth it to continue using Zune at home. I made a backup of all the songs just in case, and then wiped the libraries and migrated my computers to Windows 8 to use Xbox Music. I haven't looked back yet. Its been somewhat of a pain to redownload many of my favorites, and I'm sure I won't have 100% of my old collection there, but I've just been re-adding things as I think "hey, I haven't downloaded this band yet".

I wasn't expecting this migration between Zune and Xbox Music to be this bad.

What's worse is that now my car's Sync system can see all the files as the phone presents itself in mass storage mode, but Microsoft doesn't have the right keys to decrypted the protected content in the WMA files. If I bought the song and it downloaded as an MP3, I can play it. Otherwise, it just sits at 0:00. For some reason, Bluetooth Audio in my car with my 920 is a shaky experience with lots of stuttering, so now I've had to resort to a headphone cable to plug in my phone if I want to listen to 95% of my music collection. What a major oversight. Quite depressing that I wouldn't have a problem in my car if I had an iPod/iPhone that had all the music downloaded from iTunes. You'd expect for a Microsoft product to work better with another Microsoft product than an Apple product, but I guess not.

On principle this really pisses me off. Practically it just doesn't affect me. When I watch movies on a portable it's always on my Nexus from DVDs I converted using handbrake, and even that's not very often. Renting from any company is so much more expensive then Redbox. Yeah Zune was better but I had no issues using WMP to get my music on my phone. What's clear is they rushed this to market to have it ready for Black Friday and we'll see the finished product probably by the end of the year. Until then I have no plans to go back to my Trophy.

That attitude is exactly why I haven't hunted down a Microsoft employee and punched them, lol. I do agree. Now I'm more and more convinced that they were rushing to meet deadlines, and that was the real reason for now showing off more stuff sooner. It's a little disappointing, BUT I hope that Microsoft (and Nokia and HTC) are ready to push some updates out through the holidays.

This may sound weird, but start playing the track, then pop the "..." menu up and there should be a "Download" option. It's tedious because you can only do it while the track is playing, but it does work.

I ran into this issue when I tried to sync a movie to my Lumia 920. I am OUTRAGED that MS has done this. There is NO desktop app to sync from my XP laptop to wp8 so I have to do it through clunky windows media and its impossible to sync purchased movies. Furthermore, there is still no support for Bluetooth keyboards on wp8, so there's no real advantage in having an office app on the phone. I could do more on my old windows mobile PDA than I can on my Lumia. I have been a loyal Microsoft user, but I am seriously considering taking my phone back and going with the iPhone 5. There are even fewer advantages in wp8 than in wp7. Someone in Microsoft has really misjudged what users like myself need from them.

I first came across this problem on my Surface, rented a movie and wanted to send to Xbox to play on my TV but was unable to do so without buying it again on the xbox. This is insane, I have invested in Windows 8, Surface RT and now Windows Phone 8 for this "dream" of three screens and the cloud. Its absolute ridiculous and to add insult to injury we have to raise this as a feature request? really Microsoft?

Think you're wrong here. I bought several movies on my Surface via Xbox video on a recent trip. They all show up on the Xbox in the Xbox Videos section under My Videos. I can watch them without issue. Just verified.

That said I just realized you said rented. Purchasing may allow this behavior and renting may not.

Think you're wrong here. I bought several movies on my Surface via Xbox video on a recent trip. They all show up on the Xbox in the Xbox Videos section under My Videos. I can watch them without issue. Just verified.

That said I just realized you said rented. Purchasing may allow this behavior and renting may not.

And the studios and everyone else wonder's why people rip and "borrow" movies and music. It is ridiculous that we are put through this. This is exactly why I'll never purchase online DRM content. It is bad enough that we purchase movies, games and music for the XBox, Windows 8 or Windows Phone and have to pay for some of the items 3 times.
For the sack of humanity, why didn't Microsoft just take the Zune PC client and up date it to handle XBox music and Windows Phone 8. What a POS their new sync client is and don't even get me started with the Windows 8 music/video apps.
They need to pull their heads out of the dark place and get all the teams onto one common goal, they are so not there yet.
That said, I have 2 Surface's, 4 Windows 8 desktops and 2 WP8.
All I can say for now, is Slysoft to the rescue.

Oh, dont think you are safe buying disks either. Cinavia is the new DRM gift from the studios which is embedded in the audio stream and is persistent even after ripping: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia. Best option is just to go and see live plays, everything else will be constrained by bloody DRM!

Joe Belfiore should be fired. Since 2010 he is unable to delivery a finished piece of software or at least provide a roadmap explaining when we could expect new features.
We served 2 years as a "beta testers" with WP7 for nothing as WP8 is still unfinished and even worse in many aspects compared to WP7.

1) Why Joe? Sinofsky was the one calling all the shots in the entire Windows division (including Windows Phone) the past couple years. He's already fired. Joe has actually been (from what I can tell, at least) a well-liked attribute. What I would like to see is for J. Allard to come back.

2) What, exactly, were you hoping for? And don't say apps, we all know that's entirely up to developers and the API's for WP8 are much better off. Also, they just spent 2 years rewriting the entire platform on the NT kernel. That's a huge undertaking of its own. I love how people pretend to understand development.

He is the manager and he does all the roadmap for forthcoming versions, so he is the guy to blame for all this mess.
Nothing is working well on WP8, since the pre-launch "mistery" to the lack of phones available to buy, not compatible apps, random reboots et al.
They are working on this Windows Phone port to the NT Kernel since early WP7 days, so they had 2 years to launch something finished, and they came with this?
No, thanks.

Wow I was just talking about this this today.. I purchased the season pass for American Horror Story and just today decided to try to watch an episode during lunch on my lumia 920 and i couldnt do it. I had already written the fact that the mobile apps in the Windows 8 store arent even available for WP8 (which some are now slowly making thier way to the platform) off as a "growing pain" of trying to unite the 3 ecosystems but not having the feature from the zune or windows phone from before is just nuts.

Upgraded from my htc titan to a Lumia 920 so i'll have more storage for my music and playlists...just to find its screwed most of it up! Microsoft, why is it all the 20+ playlists i previously created in Zune now has no songs in them?!!! Also, thanks for taking away most of my album art and leaving grey squares in their place!! Maybe, i should just try out Android

We really shouldnt have to beg for features that were not only present in the previous version but are present on competitors platforms as well. If this is how the WP experience is going to be why exactly should anyone buy a WP device? Fewer apps, fewer accessories, poorer ecosystem and now incompatibilities with its desktop counterpart? The very thing that has been touted for months? Sounds to me like MS just dont give a damn as long as they can sell their services to users on other platforms, and this seems to be borne out by the fact that practically all MS services on WP are available or soon will be on ios and android. Maybe the third screen they were referring to were ios and android screens?

I get DRM for renting but you should get DRM free in m4v if you buy. Ultraviolet is the way to go then I guess or your still left with buying the movie and ripping it.

Stupid that Xbox movies is being such a pinta and MS knew they killed Zune and rolled this as the new hotness. If your gonna take on apple and leave no stone unturned then seemless play across devices should be #1 cause really this is where apple shines.

Looks like they've removed that from the US site now, but it's still up on the Canadian one (and I have a screenshot). XBox Video content that was purchased is specifically advertised as working on WP8 devices. This is a bait-and-switch after people have made purchase decisions based on the compatibility of their various platform devices, not just an "oops... we misunderstood MS."

This dumbfounds me, did they expect to sneak this by us? How can Apple and Google secure rights to play on phones, but not Microsoft? Thanks Daniel for reporting this, maybe they will get this rectified.

That's why I buy movies/TV shows on physicals disc, and get the digital version from thepiratebay. This BS is ridiculous and I'll continue to not support those digital ripoff stores because of this crap. Microsoft media is all around 100% worthless compared to their competitors, so I see no problem in using Netflix's service, buying the physical copy, and downloading the digital copies from TPB. These morons still don't get that acquiring content "illegally" has and always will be easier.

This is just shameful I use this feature all the time on my titan 2 and I love the way it works. I will wait to get any wp8 or window8 anything until this is fixed I'll just save my upgrade for now get it fixed ms. I will also start a thread in the Xbox.com forums if one has not been started yet.

I use Zune with my Arrive to get all my Podcasts that I listen to. Unfortunately, since moving to Xbox, most of the feeds have become corrupted to a point that I haven't gotten one line since about mid to late October. I can at least still listen to them on my PC using the iTunes program. It's sad that Microsoft is doing such a poor job at this transition. It really makes me wonder if they care about their customer base at all.

Are any of the new movies worth watching? Let alone frantically wanting to watch that crap on your phone. I can't believe this! consume consume consume......where will it end? oops. Sorry I just had some curry in a hurry.

So there are an array of people all complaining about the same thing. Are you all complaining to Microsoft as well or are you just showing up to whine and make it someone else's job to push the issue? Actually for the most part it is obviously the latter. Submit the suggestion and push complaints on the Xbox hosted forums. If it is such a vitally important issue get up and do something contructive about it. It that is too much then at least contact customer support and ask questions. If, on the other hand, you are just going to hang out here and express your outrage, please just shut up and live with it.

I looked through the MS website to find a palce to send my comments and to, hopefully, find a solution as I've been trying to help some of the PodCasts that I listen to get their feeds back into the Xbox system and so far have found NOTHING from MS that was any help. Absolutely NOTHING.

I agree with Daniel. This a problem that I have had for a while with Zune video or Xbox Video. Someone made the point that you can just buy a bluray version and use that digital download to put on your phone. Well that doesn't work. The digital copies are only good for iTunes and ios devices. Even the ultraviolet digital copies won't work for WP's. Xbox video has been the only option for getting videos (tv shows/movies). I know personally I buy almost everything on my Xbox. It is far more simple then trying to manage a different ultraviolet account for ever single studio that puts out a movie! This is a huge miss and hopefully Microsoft finds a fix soon.

Folks like Amazon and Rhapsody LOVE these kinds of problems. Why limit yourself to a single platform for content forever and feel these pains when you can use a strong third party that works everywhere?

Ultimately it would be really nice if content were transferable between providers. If I spend money on Zune or iTunes and then get sick of those interfaces I shouldn't have to write off those purchases as a loss if I switch to Amazon or Google Play. After all, the DVDs I bought will play in any DVD player I own no matter who built it - why can't digital content have that kind of flexibility?

This is a crappy move on MS. I have been investing in the zune video service for years under the impression that my files would play across all my devices. Xbox essentially picked my video ecosystem for being my gaming platform of choice. Now all the years of TV and Video I have acquired can no longer sync with my phone, yet MS is STILL ADVERTISING IT AS A FEATURE.

I have honestly never felt more cheated. This is coming from a HUGE MS supporter but this is just unacceptable. I used to think that investing in movies on Android was a joke. Well we just took over that laughable video ecosystem.

Anymore I really just buy disks. Started to do the digital thing, but without standardization, it's a mess. As it stands, the only time I watch video on my phone is via Netflix.
It is a glaring problem that needs to be fixed pronto, however, even if it doesn't affect me.

IDK, maybe they purposely did this as to a) save your battery? b) cater to those damn carriers again or c) why not just stick to your surface...wait, you don't have one?
Tricky, yes and it certainly does suck...but its for your own good. =)

Actually , to be quite honest...it doesn't ever say anywhere that Xbox videos or movies would play on the phone. It specifically says music, videos and etc. As in regular recorded videos or even perhaps non DRM vids you may have...like probably from Media Player perhaps? Legal-ese ladies and gentlemen...learn it with Microsoft! =P

I don't know about you guys, but did anyone bother to think that this was just a misshap that is coming later?

DRM is a fickle thing to manage, and needs to exist in something like this due to the nature of its delivery. My guess is that the Windows Phones currently don't have the capability to do this seamlessy and gracegfully, and it will come in a future update. It probably was planned for launch, but was lost by the wayside just like the notification center.

Xbox Video is probably one of those things that was supposed to be there the whole time, but something is broken. The transisition from Zune to Xbox Music and Video was never going to be completely smooth.

This is the reason why it was on all the PR material. It's not exactly false advertising if it was planned from the get go. It reminds me back before with Windows Phone 7.0 NoDo and they were "advertising" how you can use you finger to fast forward and rewind on videos (scrubbing the video through the progress bar). People that had Windows Phone with NoDo and before that know that you couldn't actually do this, you had to press the fast forward and rewind button and the video would move 30 seconds ahead or behind. It's odd to think about how they couldn't figure out video scrubbing back then, especially since this was a feature in the Zune HD, but they made it happen in 7.5 Mango, so it's all good.

Microsoft has really fumbled the ball on the implementation of media across WP8. Music sucks, now this issue with Xbox video, no wireless sync, no auto playlist sync through their native app. I was pretty excited about WP8, but there's no way I'm hell I'm buying one any time soon. Looks like maybe I'll fulfill my L900 contract after all.

Oh my god... The phone id amazing...any type of media use is a complete disaster though. Hoe can I recommend this mess to anyone? For the last god damn time....FIRE who ever made the decision to dump the Zune software and then bring it back as Xbox Music+Video (not three different basterdized programs called Music, Video, and Windows Phone to sync). And do this QUICKLY. We shouldn't have to wait a year to be able to manage our music and videos just because you put monkey in charge of decisions this important.

They need to fix it fast. Associate ALL content purchased with that live ID and make it work on every device. Can it really be that hard? Fortunately this isn't a deal breaker but I have purchased content and knowing it won't work really hacks me off.

Once upon a time Microsoft rolled the Xbox Live Marketplace into Zune. Two, maybe three, years ago now. I'm still waiting for those old Xbox purchases to be usable with Zune. I suspect it'll be a while before this problem gets addressed.

I am increasingly grateful I didn't jump for a Surface RT, but my plans to get a Lumia 920 in Jan when my contract is up, followed by a Surface Tablet seem unlikely. This all sounds like the Android Google Apps nightmare. All we have heard from Microsoft dkr months was "Three Screens! Three Screens!" Now apparently it's "Three Payments".
Hmm, WinPhone 8? May have to wait for 8.5

Xbox Music is so unintuitive and crippled I wish they would just have evolved Zune, which I loved and worked well.

I had high hopes for the entertainment side of Windows 8/Windows Phone 8 and I am very disappointed at what has transpired so far.

I can only hope that the decline in revenue from downloaded movies and music, whilst everyone struggles to work it out (never mind the fact that they can't play Xbox movies on their WP8s) jolts some Redmond heads together!

Just came back from vacation. I had rented a movie on surface and did a download to play it on the plane. My GF and I watched half the movie on the plane, and then tried to watch the rest on xbox when we got home. So I used the smartglass feature from surface to play the rented movie on other devices, in this case Xbox 360. I got presented with a screen to rent it again on xbox. this is ridiculous.
I could not even stream the remaining of the movie from my Win8 desktop, probably because I did a "download rent" instead of stream originally. Anyways, this was straight embarrassing.
I have XBox 360, WP8, Win8 desktop and a MS Surface, and still cant start and finish a movie in MS ecosystem. I do feel cheated. I am having second thoughts on the whole thing now.

I've been on the fence about selling my l900 and buying a l920, but it's posts like this that make me think that i should wait for the 7.8 update instead of spending money on a phone and OS that isn't finished yet.
MS knows content sales are important, something they mastered with the xbox 360, so why the hell didn't they get xbox video working the windows phone 8?

Also inexcusable is the lack of an acknowledgement from MSoft, as well as their commitment to correct this and how ling (approximately) it will take.
Have they learned NOTHING from Win Me and Vista? The patter resulted in replacing all the PCs in my house with iMacs and MacBooks. Can they never learn?

For those that don't already know, there is a Uservoice section for Windows Phone. Someone has posted there http://bit.ly/UGKlPX a suggestion. I would implore those who want this feature added, go signup and up vote it, among others. Microsoft actively watches this, and uses it to help prioritize feature enhancements.

Well according to the Video Store on Windows 8, the Season 1 of Arrow was compatible on the Windows Phone 8. I have pictures to prove it. After I purchased the episodes I wanted I added them to my phone, only to find out my phone couldn't determine the right to use or something like then. After the latest update to the Windows Phone app I deleted the videos on my phone and tried to re-add them only to find out that Microsoft blocked the feature, so no videos could be added onto the phone. - Owner of Red Lumia 920.

In short, here is the answer from the KB:
Windows Phone 8 does not currently support playback of rented or purchased content from the Xbox Video Store. If you'd like to see this feature added, you can go to the Windows Phone Feature Suggestionswebsite and make requests for future releases.

Ill never understand how Microsoft is coming out with all of these new phones and tablets when they haven't fixed the current problems with the older models. People love these windows phones and what they offer but if microsoft don't wake up and stay competitive they will go back to the iphone & android. Face the Facts Microsoft...DON'T HATE ANDROID & IPHONE FOR GIVING THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT & NEED!!!!

We pay alot of money for these phones.....they should do what we want & give us what we need; Theres a old saying " What one won't do... Another one will"! Phones & Service Providers are no exception to this rule!